Having cleaned the burners we decided to strip the whole cooker down and give it a thorough clean.

Cleaned, reassembled and back in place. She looks as good as new!

A perfect flame.

The grill now works exactly as it should. Toast at last!

A shot of the replacement wheel showing the two new handles turned on a lathe by Marina's dad, Doug. They're a perfect match for the originals. We just need to strip, stain and re-varnish everything. A £10.50 eBay bargain!

Our recently acquired Propex heater. It's been stripped down to remove the faulty fan unit. Hopefully we can get this repaired and installed for the coming season. (Since posting this we've found that propex can no longer supply parts for these heaters! As the motor is not repairable it's back to the drawing board.)

This shows the three pieces of gland packing removed from Cassie's stern gland. There were no leaks, but there was no adjustment left, so it had to be changed. It took hours to remove the last piece, we ended up making a special tool - see the next image for details. Lets hope the new packing does the job as well as this did...

This is the tool we made to pick out the old gland packing. It was originally the underwire from a bra! Worked a treat.

Unfortunately a lot of the enamel in the original badge was cracked, which resulted in it falling to pieces. We settled for a new one from Sheridan - not quite the same, but very well made.

The new wheel after staining the handles and hub with ebony stain and a couple of coats of varnish. The wheel eventually had six coats of International Schooner varnish, cut back between coats.

A shot of the finished wheel in place. So much more in keeping with the boat than the 'Captain Pugwash" one it replaces. It's not an original Simpson Lawrence wheel as fitted to most Freeman 22s, but it is a common sight on Freeman 23s.

Marina splicing up some new fender ropes. She says it's easy, but I'm not so sure! Saves a lot of money though.

14 fender ropes for a couple of quid! The ends have been heat sealed, then heat-shrink added for good measure, so they shouldn't fray.

Our bilge blower was getting very rough and noisy. We were going to buy a new one, but decided to strip the old one down and have a look. After removing a very large amount of crud it was reasembled and works a treat. Result!

A shot of the cleaned and reasembled fan. It should last a few years yet.